57 Facts About Mario Draghi

Mario Draghi is an Italian economist, academic, banker and civil servant who served as prime minister of Italy from 13 February 2021 to 22 October 2022.

Mario Draghi left that role after a decade to join Goldman Sachs, where he remained until his appointment as Governor of the Bank of Italy in 2006.

Mario Draghi left those roles after his nomination by the European Council in 2011 to serve as President of the ECB.

Mario Draghi presided over the institution during the Eurozone crisis, becoming famous throughout Europe for saying that he would be prepared to do "whatever it takes" to prevent the euro from failing.

In 2014, Mario Draghi was listed by Forbes as the eighth-most powerful person in the world.

Mario Draghi is the only Italian to be listed three times in the Time 100 annual listicle.

Mario Draghi has been nicknamed Super Mario by some media, a nickname that was popularised during his time as President of the ECB, when he was credited by numerous sources as having played a key role in combatting the Eurozone crisis.

On 3 February 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy, Mario Draghi was invited by President Sergio Mattarella to form a government of national unity, following the resignation of Giuseppe Conte.

Mario Draghi has been rated highly in public opinion polls in Italy during his time as prime minister; at the end of his first year in office Politico Europe ranked him as the most powerful person in Europe and The Economist named Italy as "Country of the Year", singling out Mario Draghi's leadership as central to its nomination.

Mario Draghi was succeeded by Giorgia Meloni on 22 October 2022.

Mario Draghi was born in Rome in 1947 to an upper-class family; his father Carlo, who was born in Padua, first joined the Bank of Italy in 1922, and later worked for the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction and for the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro; while his mother, Gilda Mancini, who was born in Monteverde, Campania, near Avellino, was a pharmacist.

Mario Draghi is the eldest of three children including Andreina, an art historian, and Marcello, an entrepreneur.

Mario Draghi studied at the Massimiliano Massimo Institute, a Jesuit school in Rome, where he was a classmate of the future chairman of Ferrari, Luca Cordero di Montezemolo, the future prefect and civil servant Gianni De Gennaro and the future television presenter Giancarlo Magalli.

Mario Draghi went on to earn a PhD in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977, this time with a dissertation titled "Essays on economic theory and applications", under the supervision of Franco Modigliani and Robert Solow.

From 1975 to 1981, Mario Draghi was first Professor of Economic and Financial Policy at the University of Trento, then of Macroeconomics at the University of Padua, and later of Mathematical Economics at the Ca' Foscari University of Venice.

In 1983, Mario Draghi was appointed a counsellor to then-Minister of Treasury Giovanni Goria.

Mario Draghi was among the main proponents of the privatisations of many state-owned companies which occurred in the Italian economy through the 1990s.

Mario Draghi chaired the management committee of SACE, implementing a complete reformation of the group and managing the transition from the Mani Pulite corruption scandal.

Mario Draghi returned to chair SACE between 1998 and 2001, before the subsequent privatisation.

Mario Draghi was appointed as Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Goldman Sachs International in 2002.

Mario Draghi was made a member of the firm's management committee, holding all of these roles until 2005.

Mario Draghi led Goldman Sachs's European strategy and its engagements with major European corporations and governments.

In December 2005, it was announced that Mario Draghi would become Governor of the Bank of Italy.

Mario Draghi officially took up the position on 16 January 2006.

Mario Draghi represented Italy on the board of governors at both the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the Asian Development Bank.

Mario Draghi had for years been mentioned as a possible successor to Jean-Claude Trichet, whose term as president of the European Central Bank was due to end in October 2011.

Mario Draghi subsequently won the support of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for the position, who expressed a desire to see an Italian take the pre-eminent economic policymaking role within the European Union.

Mario Draghi's nomination was later approved by the European Parliament and the ECB itself, and on 24 June 2011 his appointment was signed-off by EU leaders.

Mario Draghi moved to Frankfurt and formally took up the role of ECB President on 1 November 2011, the day after Trichet's term expired.

In light of what had been slow political progress on solving the eurozone crisis, Mario Draghi's statement has come to be seen subsequently as the major turning point in the fortunes of the eurozone, with numerous policymakers and commentators describing it as having been essential to the continuation of the euro currency.

Mario Draghi has since come to be prominently associated with the phrase "whatever it takes".

Mario Draghi quickly secured the support of the centre-left Democratic Party, the centrist Italia Viva, the left-wing Free and Equal, and other small liberal and centrist parties.

Mario Draghi's cabinet was described as a national unity government in the wake of its announcement.

Mario Draghi stressed that his government would adopt a strongly pro-European position, and emphasised the importance of Italy remaining within the Eurosystem.

Conversely, Mario Draghi's decision was praised by other European leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron.

On 16 March 2021, Mario Draghi had a phone call with the French President Macron concerning the suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine and of the eventual decisions of the European Medicines Agency that will take a definitive decision on 18 March 2021.

On 15 March 2021, Mario Draghi placed the majority of Italy under so-called 'full lockdown' conditions, with non-essential businesses closing and travel restricted, in response to an increase in the transmission of COVID-19, although unlike the 2020 lockdown, factories and some other workplaces were allowed to remain open.

On 3 August 2021, the package of reforms passed the Italian Parliament after Mario Draghi announced that he would consider the vote a question of confidence in his government.

In October 2021, the Mario Draghi Government passed its budget for 2022.

On 30 December 2021, Mario Draghi oversaw passage of an additional budget proposal, including an overhaul of the Italian taxation system, the introduction of a new series of tax credits and wide-ranging company tax cuts, subsidies for firms that hire young people and new mothers, subsidised mortgages for people buying their first property, and a fund set aside in order to mitigate rising energy prices.

However, on 29 January 2022, Mario Draghi publicly supported the re-election of Mattarella as president, ending media speculation that he himself could succeed Mattarella, and pledged to oversee an overhaul of Italian competition law and public procurement policy in the following six months, with a view to increase the performance of the economy.

Since the beginning of his premiership, Mario Draghi implemented an active foreign policy focused on the Mediterranean Sea, North Africa and the Middle East in order to increase Italy's influence over the area.

On 6 April 2021, Mario Draghi visited Libya, in his first international trip, during which he met Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, saying he wanted to strengthen ties with the Arab country, a former colony of Italy.

Days later, Mario Draghi publicly labelled Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a "dictator", harshly criticising him for his behaviour after a meeting with European leaders Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, during which, according to Mario Draghi, he "humiliated President von der Leyen".

However, Mario Draghi was backed by several European leaders, including the head of the European People's Party, Manfred Weber.

In June 2021, Mario Draghi attended his first G7 summit in Cornwall in the United Kingdom.

Mario Draghi praised Biden, saying he had improved relations between the European Union and the United States.

On 26 November 2021, Mario Draghi signed the "Quirinal Treaty", with the French president Emmanuel Macron, at the Quirinal Palace, in Rome.

On 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine; Mario Draghi harshly condemned Russia's attack, calling for an immediate ceasefire and promising "whatever it takes to restore Ukrainian sovereignty".

Mario Draghi added that it was "impossible to have meaningful dialogue with Moscow", demanding Russia to unconditionally pull its forces back to the internationally established borders.

Mario Draghi was among the main proponents of the freezing of a large part of Russian Central Bank's 643 billion dollars of foreign currency reserves.

On 3 May 2022, Mario Draghi addressed the European Parliament dealing with several themes.

On 16 June 2022, Mario Draghi visited Kyiv alongside French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Mattarella accepted his resignation, but Mario Draghi remained in office as caretaker prime minister, until the formation of a new government following the 2022 general election.

In 1973, Mario Draghi married Maria Serenella Cappello, of noble origins and descendant of Bianca Cappello, and an expert in English literature, with whom he has two children: Federica, who worked as investment director of Genextra Spa and board member of Italian Angels for Biotechis, and Giacomo, a finance analyst, who worked as an interest-rate derivative trader at investment bank Morgan Stanley until 2017, and is at the LMR Partners hedge fund.

Mario Draghi is a Catholic of Jesuit education and is devoted to St Ignatius of Loyola.

Mario Draghi has homes in Rome's Parioli district and in Citta della Pieve in Umbria.